I just started e-mailing and calling around in order to try and get items for reviewing from different companies. It'll be interesting to see what happens, and what more I'd need to do. I'm pretty much in the dark here, and everything I've done benchmarks on have been on my own dime.

There's a lot of companies! I've got 26 companies I'll be contacting, and there will be plenty more I'll be adding to that as well. Not only that, I'll probably need to contact some game companies to try and get benchmarks done on those games (I'll need a lot of luck getting BF3 from EA/Origin, I'm sure).

On a side note, I finally got some 10ft and 15ft HDMI - HDMI cables to make routing to my monitors and different systems a bit easier. Running benchmarks at 5760 x 1200 is going to be a pain in the buttocks.

But Waco's probably right, they probably think you just want to review to get free stuff (I'm not gonna lie that'd be half the fun), though I'd mainly want to do it because I know I'd provide unbiased reviews.

In fact, I just recently bought a battery analyzer so I can start reviewing extended batteries for cell phones and the like (if it's under 40A or 150W draw, I can test it). So if anyone would like me to test any batteries, I'll be your man! (naturally after I get comfortable with the unit)

Thanks. While it's not crucial for me to get free items for review (heck, I have my own server that rivals most small company Production servers, and seven different systems that probably 90% of gamers dream about having). I don't think they'll be seeing it as, hey, the guy just wants free stuff, but more like, hey, this is free publicity.

At any rate, I'll still be doing benchmarks, reviews, articles, deal of the days, and whatever comes to mind. I guess that's the best thing about blogging. The show will go on, with or without review items.

I just started e-mailing and calling around in order to try and get items for reviewing from different companies. It'll be interesting to see what happens, and what more I'd need to do. I'm pretty much in the dark here, and everything I've done benchmarks on have been on my own dime.

There's a lot of companies! I've got 26 companies I'll be contacting, and there will be plenty more I'll be adding to that as well. Not only that, I'll probably need to contact some game companies to try and get benchmarks done on those games (I'll need a lot of luck getting BF3 from EA/Origin, I'm sure).

On a side note, I finally got some 10ft and 15ft HDMI - HDMI cables to make routing to my monitors and different systems a bit easier. Running benchmarks at 5760 x 1200 is going to be a pain in the buttocks.

If you're trying to contact EA to benchmark BF3: Use their twiiter. I don't even have a twitter, but I noticed they post responses to EVERYTHING on their twitter, every 3 minutes they respond to some guy saying he pwned a noob or found a bug, they are really active on there. Maybe try contacting them through twitter.

And btw, considering the reason they give out free hardware is that it's basically affiliate advertising: They're more likely to approve you if you can give them proof that you have a large audience/viewerbase. Make sure to include proof of audience in your requests, such as links to accounts and prior reviews/ subscribers, etc.

I just started e-mailing and calling around in order to try and get items for reviewing from different companies. It'll be interesting to see what happens, and what more I'd need to do. I'm pretty much in the dark here, and everything I've done benchmarks on have been on my own dime.

There's a lot of companies! I've got 26 companies I'll be contacting, and there will be plenty more I'll be adding to that as well. Not only that, I'll probably need to contact some game companies to try and get benchmarks done on those games (I'll need a lot of luck getting BF3 from EA/Origin, I'm sure).

On a side note, I finally got some 10ft and 15ft HDMI - HDMI cables to make routing to my monitors and different systems a bit easier. Running benchmarks at 5760 x 1200 is going to be a pain in the buttocks.

Whilst we reviewers at OCC get bombarded with all kinds of spam from companies, blanket emailing all of us to review their crappy USB powered desktop toasters or whatever... sometimes, just sometimes, we get requests from legit companies targeted at a specific reviewer based on an existing number of published articles (e.g. someone who reviews a bunch of graphics cards will sometimes get a graphics card review request from a company).

My somewhat bumbling point is, you need reviews to get reviews, so get to making them (even if it's your own not-brand-new gear), and any other content (guides, articles, etc.)...

I had a bunch of worklogs, articles and the like before I became a reviewer here, and I think the first thing I reviewed was my own monitor (that I bought myself), lol.

It works a lot easier in a team... and even then it's sometimes Mission ******* Impossible, lol

If you can get a competent, dedicated team together, go for it... if not, join up with a decent reviewing team (online or print)... otherwise, man, I guess there are some one-man band people like Video Review Guy or whatever, but er, quite evidently I can't think of any...

Odd, I'm getting a lot higher hits than normal today on my blog, usually it's around 80 hits throughout the day, but it's already at 132 hits. Noticing some hits from Google searches and Facebook, maybe that's why?

Still no luck getting items for review, but I still have a couple of articles coming up:
1. Five mechanical keyboard evaluation with a video to go over different Cherry MX switches (Black, Red, Blue, Brown) and design issues
2. Performance comparison between different NAND types on SSD's (ONFi 2, Toggle, Synchronous, Asynchronous)
3. Companies I've submitted RMA's from, and how they went

Cappy, have you ever asked Bosco to put you on the review team here at OCC? I know you're attempting to do your own thing, but you could probably build your portfolio quicker if you were doing your own personal reviews/blogs plus getting on the team here.......... Just a thought.